Republic still in the bag for Romley

Under pressure, the Republic’s Michael Kiefer has finally started covering the County Attorney race between conservative Bill Montgomery and RINO Rick Romley.

While the Republic is no longer ignoring the race, their “coverage” does not inspire a lot of confidence that the newspaper is committed to fairly representing the race to its readers. In other words, they’re still in the bag for Romley. Take this morning’s article about Bill Montgomery, let’s dissect it piece by piece.

Opening line: “Bill Montgomery’s biggest task in his bid for Maricopa County attorney may be to convince voters that he is not a clone of former County Attorney Andrew Thomas”

Huh? Andrew Thomas has fans and detractors, but he was elected County Attorney twice, and polls show him as the favorite to be our next Attorney General. Kiefer may not like him, but the voters appear to. Bill Montgomery is not Andrew Thomas, but is this really the concern that Kiefer makes it out to be?

Kiefer is also taking pains to dull the significant differences between Romley and Montgomery on illegal immigration enforcement. Another line from Kiefer:

“Romley has also pointed out problems in the highly contested new immigration law, Senate Bill 1070.”

“Romley set more stringent standards in charging the people arrested in Arpaio’s crime sweeps.”

In reality, and as Arpaio and others have pointed out, Romley is creating artificial barriers that make prosecution impossible. In layman’s terms, he’s refusing to enforce laws targetting illegal immigration, not “setting more stringent standards.”

Romley just isn’t a believer in a robust state effort to combat illegal immigration. He didn’t do anything in the 16 years he was County Attorney before while the problem festered. But instead of just saying he isn’t going to enforce the law, he puts up phony roadblocks on issues that were never a problem before. It gets Romley to where he wants to be–no enforcement–while at least giving him some legal reason, albeit a phony one, to justify it. And of course, being of the same mind, the paper covers for him.

Combined with their previous effort to ignore the race, the current coverage reveals the Republic’s bias. But the message is getting through to the public–one candidate wants to do something at the local level about illegal immigration, and one candidate doesn’t.

Comments

If Romley’s stringent standards mean we can get more than one employer in three years prosecuted for hiring illegals, that’s okay by me. Spending over $3 million dollars and having nothing to show for it isn’t successfully addressing the illegal immigration problem. It’s absolutely ridiculous that Arpaio only goes after the low hanging fruit and leaves the coyotes free to bring more illegals into this country and employers free to hire them when the get here.

As for Montgomery, he doesn’t need the Republic to gin up controversy about Thomas. He said multiple times at the debate that he’s not Andrew Thomas and ran away from Thomas’ record. So, which is it? Is he running as Thomas’ protegee or is he running away from Thomas?

It’s true that only a few employers have been prosecuted, but that’s because they are complying with the law and using E-Verify. But it takes the threat of enforcement to ensure compliance. Most people have never been audited by the IRS but the possibility of an audit is enough to keep them on the straight and narrow.

Montgomery has stated that he is not Thomas and he is not Romley. He actually worked in the office longer when Romley was County Attorney than Thomas. I just see him making a clear distinction that he offers a fresh start and don’t we need that!

What is really amusing are the con jobs being fed to the public by candidates like Romely and Bittersmith who are in the “tank” for Open Borders business interests and the CofC.

During his previous tenure Rick hardly lifted a finger in reagrd to immigration enforcement and when he was appointed by Stapely and company this time around, he led off by stating he would not prosecute human smuggling charges and cut off funds to the Sheriff’s Office re: employer sweeps!

For her part, Susan headed up the Stapely Defense Fund.

But their ads reveal a common “moderate” Republican trait. Talk one game while practicing another!

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